Rocking the Boat for the Sake of Truth

Jack Hart, editor of The Oregonian relates an interesting detective story about how he suspected a famous, often-quoted speech attributed to Chief Seattle, after whom the American west coast city is named, was actually a forgery. The speech, “a sentimental denunciation of the white man’s disregard for the land”¹ served as a favorite public conscience-tugger for environmental causes. It turns out that the speech was actually written by a Texas environmentalist for a 1970s Earth Day radio program. The author had “presented it as something Chief Seattle might have spoken, but others picked it up without citing the author.”² Many people had quoted the poem over the years without realizing that its authenticity was questionable — but some knew better and paraded it as fact nonetheless. “Listen” as Hart recounts one experience and his reaction:

I interviewed the publisher of a children’s book based on the speech. So what if it never happened? she seemed to be saying. It’s the thought that counts.

I was appalled. Not only were true believers ignoring evidence that was right in front of their noses, but they also were defending lies aimed at children! That smacked of intellectual laziness and paternalistic we-know-what’s-best-for-you attitudes that lie at the heart of totalitarianism. Which led me to the final hypothesis, the thought that became my focus: “The well-meaning thinking that had nourished the Chief Seattle speech springs from the same psychology that enables vile dictatorships and ruthless ideologies.”³

In like manner, countless Christians believe Dark-Ages traditions without ever questioning their truthfulness. Created in the image of God, and with the supernatural aid of the Holy Spirit, you are fully capable of thinking, investigating and understanding the difference between fabricated tradition and Bible truth! And you do have the time if it is important enough to you. We are living in the end-times. Frankly, we don’t have time for super bowls and many of the other distractions of this carnal world. The return of Jesus and resurrection of the saints is going to be gloriously spectacular beyond our wildest imagination! Even if the Super Bowl, World Soccer Championship and March Madness championship game all fell on the same day it would seem like an extremely dull Victorian Sunday in comparison to the second coming of Christ! I pray that finding truth is important to you now while the door of human probation is still open because the day is soon to arrive when the door will be shut — and locked forever! May God help us all!

“For the time [is come] that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if [it] first [begin] at us, what shall the end [be] of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1^stPeter 4:17-18)

“Then one said to Him, ‘Lord, are there few who are saved?" And He said to them, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from,’ then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”(Luke 13:23-28a NKJV; See also Matthew 25:10; Revelation 3:7)

Churches and pastors that mingle false doctrines with the pure at this late hour are on a disastrous collision course with the Bible! In this chapter, we are going to do some serious “boat rocking” in order to expose errors and bring forth Bible truth into the blazing light of day! We are going to look at several passages that are often misunderstood, and we will let the Bible itself clear up the confusion.

Did Jesus Go to Hell When He Died?

I attended a church one Sunday morning where the preacher used 1^st Peter 3:17- 4:7 to “prove” that Jesus’ Spirit (soul-ghost) left His dead body hanging on the cross and went to an eternally existing nether-worldly hell where He preached to conscious, bodiless souls who had been writhing there for thousands of years and who would continue to writhe there for all eternity without end, no matter how much preaching Jesus did to them. Let’s read the passage now.

“For [it is] better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto [even] baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of [his] time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of [our] life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with [them] to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of [you]: Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” (1^{stPeter 3:17-4:7)}

Now assuming you read the passage let’s ask some reasonable questions. Does the passage under review really teach what that preacher said it teaches? Since anyone who ends up in hell will have already been judged as unredeemable, it would be fruitless to try to bring them to repentance, wouldn’t it?

According to Isaiah 55:11, God doesn’t preach without accomplishing something good with His preaching. “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper [in the thing] whereto I sent it.”

Please read Isaiah 55:1-13, and you will see that the whole purpose of God’s speaking is to bring souls into salvation. Once the torments of hell begin, such preaching would be fruitless and therefore pointless. The purpose for preaching is to bring living, breathing people to repentance. So, what is 1^{st Peter 3 actually saying to us?}

When Jesus was hanging dead on the cross, He was dead. He says so twice in His last book of the Bible. “I [am] he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.” (Revelation 1:18) “These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.” (Revelation 2:8) So according to His own statements, Jesus’ human nature actually died.⁴

Peter uses the real death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a model to teach us that just as Jesus suffered and died in the flesh and was brought back to life by the Spirit, even so should we die to our sins that we might live a new spirit empowered life.

“For [it is] better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:”(1^stPeter 3:17, 18)

Now, with that moral lesson noted, let’s discover the who, when, where, what, how and why that 1^st Peter 3:17- 4:7 is describing.

(1) Who was preached to? They were antediluvians, the people living during the last 120 years of probationary time just prior to the Genesis flood. (See Genesis 6)

(2) When were the antediluvians preached to? “When once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.” (1^st Peter 3:20) In other words, Noah, “a preacher of righteousness” (2^nd Peter 2:5), preached to them “in the days of Noah” while they were still alive, and “while the ark was being built.” Obviously then, this preaching was done before the flood while they were still bodily living, not thousands of years later after they were already dead.

(3) Where were these people? They were alive on the earth during the 120 years of probationary time in which Noah, by the Spirit, preached repentance and warned them about the coming flood. (See Genesis 6:3) Noah preached Jesus’ message of repentance and salvation. It is in this sense that Jesus preached to them.

(4) What was the condition of the antediluvians? They were “in prison.” What was the nature of their imprisonment? The Bible indicates that they were prisoners of sin and moral darkness, and that God decided to grant them a final 120 years of probationary time to repent, after which He would destroy the world by a flood. (See Genesis 6:1-18, paying special attention to verse three.) An unregenerate person is a slave of sin and cannot free himself from the bonds of that spiritual slavery. “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.” (Proverbs 5:22) Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would bring people out of the prison house of sin. “To bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”(Isaiah 42:7; See also Isaiah 61:1) The antediluvians needed a Savior, someone to deliver them from this prison house of sin, the slavery of sin. They needed God, but they rejected Him and descended so deeply into rebellion that God finally destroyed them. Before destroying them, God mercifully extended their probation for 120 years. He sent Noah who preached to them to repent before it would be forever too late.

(5) How were those ancient people preached to? They were preached to by the Spirit of Christ. Peter clearly says that it was “by the Spirit: By which also [Jesus] went and preached unto the spirits in prison.”(1^stPeter 3:18b-19) In another passage, Peter plainly states that the “Spirit of Christ” was in the ancient prophets like Noah. Peter goes on to equate the Spirit of Christ with the Holy Spirit.

“The prophets have inquired and searched carefully, . . . searching what . . . the [Spirit of Christ who was in them] was indicating, when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have [preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit] sent from heaven.” (1^stPeter 1:10-12 NKJV, Italics supplied)

God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit are all one in mind and purpose; they are in perfect harmony. It is in this sense that they are equated in these passages. In fact, if you are a true Christian, you have the Spirit in you! “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” (Romans 8:9)

In other words, when a Christian is in harmony with God, his/her mind and attitude bears spiritual fruit and not carnal fleshly fruit.

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:19-25)

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with affection and lust (desire). God created us to experience emotion, affection, appetite and passion. When we, through the Holy Spirit’s influence, enjoy these pleasures temperately and appropriately God gives us His approval.

So Christ preached to antediluvian people through Noah who was under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit.

(6) Why were the antediluvians preached to? 1^st Peter 4:6, reads as follows: “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” In other words, the “gospel” (good news) “was” (past tense) preached to living, breathing people that have since died. They were preached to before they died so that they might repent and “live according to God in the spirit.”

So Noah preached to the moral consciences (“spirits”) of the people imprisoned by the controlling power of sin during the last 120 years of probationary time before the destruction of the world by floodwaters. A few may have repented and then fell asleep in temporal death before the flood trusting in the future resurrection but most never repented. Only eight living breathing “souls” were saved from drowning in the waters of the flood. God “spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth [person], a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.” (2^nd Peter 2:5)

Please take your Bible and read Ephesians 4:8-10 now. Some preachers claim that passage proves Jesus’ soul preached to prisoners in hell while His body lay in the tomb. That is not what the passage says. It actually says that when Jesus arose from the tomb, He raised many saints who had been the captives of death in the grave. They now had become captives of His love and resurrection power. (See Matthew 27:51-53) Jesus had descended from heaven to the earth to become a man and even descended into the lowly depths of the grave, but He conquered death and paraded a resurrected “first fruit” sample of its former captives up to heaven after His resurrection. (See also 1^st Corinthians 15:20-26; and for allegorical insight see Leviticus 23:10-16; Deuteronomy 26:1-10)

Saul and the Witch of Endor

Now let’s examine another commonly misinterpreted passage. Please read 1^st Samuel 28:3-19. Assuming that you have read the passage, let’s note a few important points that will clear up any confusion. Please keep your Bible open to the relevant verses as we clarify their meaning.

(1) It always has been against God’s law for anyone to practice wizardry, witchcraft, or to perform séances with familiar spirits. The reason God forbids this is because the familiar spirits are not conscious ghosts of dead people, but rather they are demons, evil angels from Satan’s host who impersonate dead people in order to deceive the living.

(2) The passage under scrutiny says the witch called “Samuel” “up” . . . “out of the earth” and not down from heaven. (See verses 11-13) Of course, if Samuel is in the dust of the earth, he’s unconscious. Furthermore, Samuel was a righteous man destined for heaven at the future resurrection. Surely, God would not give an evil witch the power to control a righteous man. The real Samuel did not appear. The apparition was an imposter.

(3) According to verse 14, Saul didn’t see anything. He relied on the witch to tell him what she saw.

(4) According to verse 14, the witch saw “an old man.” If the spirit the witch claimed to see were truly Samuel, a glorious being from heaven, he would not have been “an old man.” He would have been youthful.

(5) The “old man” the witch saw (verse 14) was “covered with a mantle.” This detail raises a huge red flag. Are we to believe that Samuel’s ghost was wearing ghost clothes too? Surely, God does not intend us to believe that Samuel’s ghost came up “out of the earth” wearing a ghost “mantle”. Does God immortalize the outfit a person is buried with so their “ghost” can wear it in heaven or hell? Hardly! The “gods” that the witch saw “ascending out of the earth” were demons. Their purpose was to deceive the darkened minds of Saul and the witch.

(6) The demon impersonating the old dead man Samuel spoke to Saul. The problem here is that both God and Samuel had ceased communicating with Saul because of Saul’s rebellion. The reason Saul went to a witch for help is because God had rejected him and wouldn’t communicate with him anymore either directly or through Samuel. (See verses 6, 15, and 16)

Clearly, this supposed communication with Samuel was not what it appeared. This was a demon impersonating Samuel, but is referred to as “Samuel” in this passage because that is what Saul and the witch perceived. They were deceived. The passage is simply speaking from their superficial perspective, not from a realistic perspective.

Saul once knew the truth that dead men are unconscious and cannot communicate with the living but when he rejected God’s authority in his life, he began a process of reality-disconnect. His disconnect from reality led him to the terrible deception that dead men do talk. The Bible says that in “Sheol” (the grave) “there is neither doing nor thinking, neither understanding nor wisdom.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10b NEB) Obviously, if dead people cannot think, neither can they talk. Saul’s rejection of God’s leadership and his consultation with a “familiar spirit” led to God rejecting him and culminated in God allowing him to be killed at the hands of the Philistines.

“So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, [even] against the word of the LORD, which he kept not, and also for asking [counsel] of [one that had] a familiar spirit, to inquire [of it]; And inquired not of the LORD: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David.” (1^stChronicles 10:13, 14)

(7) God had privileged Saul with great light and honor. When he despised that light and honor exchanging them for darkness and dishonor by turning to a witch, his probation irrevocably came to and end. The demon deduced that God had forsaken Saul and that he would likely soon die. The demon also knew that if he could bring Saul to despair, he would lose his fighting spirit and more likely be killed in battle. (See 1^stSamuel 28:19, 20) The demon also intended to fulfill his own prophecy just as soon as God would permit. However, the demon’s prophetic description of the death of Saul and his sons was only partly correct. It contained errors. Saul’s sons were not all killed the next day as the demon had prophesied. Three of his four sons were killed with him, but apparently not the next day. (See 1^stSamuel 30:1- 31:4) One of Saul’s sons, Ishbosheth, survived and became king over Israel, reigning for two years before being murdered. (See 2^ndSamuel 2:1-10; 4:5-7)

(8) The demon impersonating Samuel says in verse 19 that Saul would join Samuel after being killed in the next day’s battle. But Saul, being an evil man, would not “join” Samuel, a righteous man, except in the sense that both of them lie asleep in the dust until the resurrection. Samuel will rise to eternal life in the first resurrection at the second coming of Jesus. Saul will come up in the second resurrection 1,000 years later and face judgment and execution in the fires of hell. (See Revelation 20:4-15)

The temporal fate of all mankind, including Samuel and Saul, is summed up in God’s succinct statement to Adam after his original act of rebellion. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:19) This passage says nothing about a division of man with part of him going to the dust and another part going straight to heaven or hell in a conscious state. The body (“thou”) returns to the dust. The personality (spirit) returns to God asleep. Thank God, He cares for us and keeps a perfect blueprint “name” record of us each as He looks forward to the future resurrection.

Jesus Will Come With Myriads of Holy Beings

1^st Thessalonians 3:13 tells us that Jesus will return to this earth someday “with all His saints.” And according to Jude 1:14-15,

“The Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard [speeches] which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

This passage refers to the third coming at the end of the millennium. At that time, the redeemed saints will return from heaven to earth and the wicked will be raised for judgment and execution in the fires of hell.

The Greek word muriades has been translated “ten thousand” in the King James Bible, but muriades does not carry the idea of ten in its meaning. It simply means thousands or myriads of holy beings. This could be a reference to the holy redeemed saints and the holy angels together. It certainly does not indicate ghosts of dead saints returning to earth to be reinserted into bodies.

1^st Thessalonians 3:13 may be a composite view of the second and third coming or may refer only to the redeemed saints who are gathered together at the second coming. Another possibility is that “saints” (Greek-hagioi) is referring to angels “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him.” (Matthew 25:31) The basic idea of hagios is “separated from common and set apart for holy use.” Both redeemed saints and heaven’s angels fit this category.

Spirit = Angel in Acts 23:6-10

In Acts 23, we witness a raucous scene in which Paul is taken before the High Priest for trial on charges of stirring up trouble with heretical teachings. As he stands among a large group of Jewish officials, some of which are his accusers, he conceives a clever method of diverting their attention and wrath away from him and onto one another. Let’s take up the dramatic scene from the Bible:

“But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men [and] brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both. And there arose a great cry: and the scribes [that were] of the Pharisees' part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God. And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring [him] into the castle.” (Acts 23:6-10)

In verse nine of this passage, we find the statement “if a spirit or an angel.” A superficial reading of that passage might seem to imply that the word spirit is a reference to a dead person communicating with Paul. The passage might especially come across that way to someone with a preconception that spirits are the conscious souls of the dead performing the same function as angels. However, a little scrutiny makes it abundantly clear that the context does not support such an interpretation.

(1) Verse 8 gives us our first clue with the phrase containing “neitherangel, nor spirit.” The words neither and nor indicate that angel and spirit both refer to the same thing. Paul used complementary and equated words for effect.

(2) We find the second clue, which goes hand-in-hand with the first, in the word “both” from verse eight. The phrase “the Pharisees confess both” is a precise reference to only two concepts, the resurrection and angelic spirits, not resurrection, angels, and spirits of dead humans. There is no mention of dead people, which would add a third concept. If three concepts were intended, the word “both” would be inappropriate.

(3) We find our third helpful clue in verse nine with the Greek ή, which the King James translates or in this passage. That is a poor translation of the Greek, which indicates the King James translator’s bias. That same Greek ή (Eta in the Greek alphabet) is translated as yea (yes with emphasis) by the King James translators in 1^st Corinthians 16:6: “And it may be that I will abide, yea-(Greek ή), and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whithersoever I go.” Consistently following that same principle, the King James translation of this sentence should read, “We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit, yea, an angel, hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.” This is exactly what the Pharisees were saying. Keep in mind this was a very emotional and contentious scene before Ananias the high priest, and in the high emotion of the moment, the speaker used both angel and spirit with precise clarifying effect. When we view this scene realistically rather than abstractly, the language makes perfect sense and is fully compatible with the teachings of the rest of Scripture on the state of the dead, the importance of the resurrection and the subject of angelic spirits.

(4) We find our fourth and decisive clue in Paul’s declaration of hope. What is the basis of his hope? Is he hoping for a bodiless ascent to heaven when he dies? No! He plainly states in verse six that he is in trouble because of his hope in “the resurrection of the dead.”

Why Doe$ the Roman Catholic Church $trictly Defend the Indefen$ible Doctrine of Purgatory?

The Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory brings large sums of money into the coffers of the church. Priests perform memorial masses and sin indulgences for the laity. During these rituals, the priests remit punishment of sin in a hellish halfway house they call Purgatory. Yet, even Catholic theologians themselves admit that there is no explicit teaching of Purgatory to be found anywhere in the Bible. In plain language, it’s a made-up dogma. Purgatory simply does not exist. So why doesn’t the church refute it and stop teaching it? That would relieve a huge mental and financial burden off believers who often pay money to have their “venal” sins or those of their loved ones declared expiated by a priest in order to lessen or eliminate their time of suffering in the purifying fires of a Purgatory that doesn’t even exist.

At its core, the doctrine of Purgatory contradicts the true gospel. Heaven cannot be bought or earned by human merit or by monetary “donations” to the priest. The Bible clearly refutes such notions. Sadly, perhaps some people might like the idea of buying indulgences to commit minor sins. But the true gospel calls upon such individuals to “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.” (Acts 3:19) Samuel Bacchiocchi addresses the gospel-contradiction problem and solution in straightforward language.

There is nothing more incompatible with the nature of the Gospel than the idea that believers must “satisfy divine justice” for their sins both during their lifetime and after death in purgatory. Yet this unbiblical belief lies at the very foundation of the doctrine of purgatory. If the Catholic Church would accept the full satisfaction for our sins provided by Christ’s atoning sacrifice, their doctrine of purgatory would collapse immediately.⁵

Roman Catholicism traditionally uses 2^nd Maccabees 12:42-46 as their classic “proof” text to defend the doctrine of Purgatory. But the book of 2^nd Maccabees is not even a part of true Scripture. The early church rejected the book of 2^nd Maccabees as spurious. Nevertheless, in a desperate attempt to find “Bible” support for Purgatory which Protestants had soundly refuted, 2nd Maccabees was officially added to the Roman Catholic Bible by the Council of Trent (1546 A. D).⁶

Catholic apologists also attempt to use Matthew 12:32 to prove that sins can be forgiven after death. But the text actually teaches the very opposite. According to the text, “Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the [world] to come.” The key words in that text are not and neither. There is nothing in that text teaching forgiveness for sin after death.

Catholic theologians use one other text to “prove” the existence of purgatory. That text is 1^st Corinthians 3:11-15. Once again, we have a “Proof” text that says absolutely nothing about a nether-worldly place called Purgatory. In fact, this text is an admonition for Christians to make sure that their hearts are right with God now. The evidence of that genuine heart conversion will be in the living of a godly life now. There is nothing in this text about earning merit or about buying a quick pass to heaven with money. The true meaning of the text is that some nominal Christians may repent near the end of their lives and narrowly escape the fires of hell; nevertheless, the faulty works of their long life of half-heartedness will “burn.” In other words, they may be saved at last, but the effects of their life of sin have caused others to stumble and be lost. Their long life was essentially worthless until very near the end. As Samuel Bacchiocchi notes, they are saved, shall we say, “by the skin of their teeth.” Let’s turn to the true gospel as found in the true Bible.

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, [as] silver and gold . . . But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot . . . Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.” (1^stPeter 1:18a, 19, 21)

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, [I say], at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where [is] boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” (Romans 3:23-28)

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Romans 4:4, 5)

For the church to teach that the sinner may expiate his own sins through personal suffering “is the ultimate insult to Christ’s atoning sacrifice!”⁷ What an affront this must be to the Holy Father in heaven whose heart was wrung out as the special Son of His bosom suffered for your sins on the cross. “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14) Finally, it is wholly unnecessary for you to pay to have your sins purged because Jesus has already “by himself purged our sins.” (Hebrews 1:3b)

Souls Under the Altar

James Strong published his popular concordance of the King James Bible in 1890. I use it quite often. However, Strong’s bias against soul mortality sometimes led him to be inconsistent. According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, the Greek word psuche (5590 in Strong’s index) translated “soul” and “life” in the New Testament is

“the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from 4151, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from 2222, which is mere vitality, even of plants.”

Strong’s index number 4151 referred to there, is for the Greek pneuma, which is typically translated “spirit” in the King James New Testament. It is never translated “soul” — never!

Strong’s attempt to use such passages as Revelation 6:9-11 to prove that the rational aspect of man is immortal and survives the death of the body is inappropriate. Let’s take a look at verse nine of this passage. “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.” The word souls there is psuche, which according to Strong is “the animal sentient principle only” and is not the immortal soul. Obviously, if psuche is not the so-called “immortal soul,” then this text cannot plausibly be used to prove that immortal souls of martyrs are currently lying under some literal alter in heaven consciously crying out for their blood to be avenged. “And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (verse 10)

Revelation 6:11 helps the unbiased student to understand that this is symbolic language like God used when he confronted Cain with the murder of his brother Abel, the first martyr: “The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.” (Genesis 4:10) God is using allegorical hyperbole in both cases to make a symbolic point. Literal dead souls did not cry out from under an altar in heaven any more than Abel’s blood cried out from the ground. According to Revelation 6:11, these souls of martyrs “should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they [were], should be fulfilled.” This “rest” is the sleep of temporal death referred to numerous times throughout Scripture.For example, God told the prophet Daniel that he would rest in death until the end of the world and then be resurrected to his eternal inheritance. “For you shall rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days.” (Daniel 12:13b NKJV) The New English Bible™ reads, “you shall arise to your destiny at the end of the age.”

The animal sentient principle is the function of the physical brain and nervous system in any living animal or man. If it is merely an animal principle, it is certainly not an immortal bodiless soul.

This passage actually gives powerful evidence that wicked souls are not currently suffering God’s vengeance in the fires of hell. If the martyr-making saint-killers were already suffering God’s vengeance in hell’s fires, no “souls” in heaven would be crying out to God, asking Him how much longer it would be till He judged and avenged their blood. God’s executive judgment and avenging in the fires of hell is not occurring yet, therefore, Revelation symbolically represents “souls” of martyrs as crying out asking, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood.” God’s Judgment and Day of Vengeance will surely come, and soon! “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

The Worm That Does Not Die

Now let’s look at another often-misinterpreted passage in the Bible. Please take your Bible and briefly read Mark 9:43-48 and a companion passage Isaiah 66:24. In speaking of the lost souls who will be destroyed in hell, both Jesus and the prophet Isaiah state, “their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched.” What is this worm? The New Testament Greek word for worm is skolex, a literal worm that feeds on dead bodies. Some preachers claim that the worm is immortal; others claim it’s just a metaphor for mental torment caused by separation from God. There is no Biblical basis for either of those claims. The worm is not a metaphor for remorse eternally eating away on the minds of damned people, tormenting them with horrific and unending insanity. And of course, the Bible does not say that immortal worms inhabit hell!

Whenever possible, the Bible student should assign the same or similar meaning to the same symbol wherever it occurs. This will reveal consistency within the Bible. As we proceed now we will see consistency in the Bible as to the real meaning of the worm. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible defines the Hebrew word for worm in Isaiah 66:24 as a voracious maggot. Obviously then, Isaiah 66:24 depicts a literal scene of worms eating away at dead bodies. This is the passage that Jesus quotes from in Mark 9:43-48. Jesus uses Isaiah’s language in a matter-of-fact manner. He doesn’t say that He’s allegorizing the meaning. Shouldn’t we then, take Jesus’ statement in the same literal sense as the passage he is quoting?

Now let’s ask, “What does the Bible, in other passages, claim that “worm” means?” Among Old Testament writers, Job presents one of the healthiest and most realistic views of death and the grave:

“If I wait, the grave [is] mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou [art] my father: to the worm, [Thou art] my mother, and my sister. And where [is] now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when [our] rest together [is] in the dust.”(Job 17:13-16)

Job pictures sheol (hell or gravedom) as a chamber, a bed where worms (maggots) literally eat away the flesh of the inmate. This is the same Job who had previously expressed confidence that sheol is a safe, quiet, peaceful resting place where he would wait for resurrection to a new life in the flesh. (See Job 14:12-15) There is no hint of worms as a metaphor for torment, nor of sheol as a place of suffering. Old Testament writers like Job can be very instructive to us concerning the state of man in death if we are willing to hear what they say.

In the Old Testament scene that Jesus draws His language from, Isaiah pictures the righteous literally viewing the dead corpses of their enemies as worms devour their carcasses.

“And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” (Isaiah 66:24)

Since this passage is the basis for Jesus’ statements in Mark 9, we ought to begin where Jesus began by noting Isaiah’s meaning. If we are not willing to accept Isaiah and Jesus’ obviously literal meaning, we force Scripture to allegorize the worm into something vague and imprecise. There is no textual basis for that. On the other hand, if we literalize the worm with the preconception that lost souls are immortal, we force the text to say that God also gives immortality to maggots.

Of course, the absurdity of immortal maggots is compounded by the notion of immortalized bodies that can be fed upon by maggots for never-ending ages without ever being consumed. And all this while a fire is burning that never consumes the human bodies or the worms.

Rather than allegorizing this passage, we ought to understand it literally. Real worms are going to consume real bodies of lost people that have died in the global upheaval that occurs at Jesus second coming. The worms (skolex) will not die until they have finished their job.

According to Revelation 19-21, the New Jerusalem (filled with the redeemed people of the ages) will descend from heaven to the earth which has lain in ruins for a millennium since the final global destruction that occurred at the second coming. (See Revelation 11:19; 16:18-21; Isaiah 24:18b-23) The redeemed will have opportunity to gaze upon the desolate surreal scene including what remains of the carcasses of the lost. Jesus will then resurrect the lost to face judgment and final execution in the fires that purify the earth. “There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.” “The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” (Acts 24:15b; Revelation 20:5a)

“Prepared” for the Devil and His Angels

“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41)

The word “prepared” in this passage is often misrepresented to mean already burning. The word “prepared” does not imply that the fire is already burning now, but only that its inevitability is a foregone conclusion, a foreordained irrevocable decision made by the Sovereign. The Bible also speaks of Jesus as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” but this language does not mean that He was literally slain at the foundation of the world. (See Revelation 13:8) It simply means that God made an irrevocable decision in counsel with His Son, the Lamb. Once God makes a decision, it is as good as done because He always keeps His word and never changes His mind. “For I [am] the LORD, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6a) “I [am] God, and [there is] none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth [in] righteousness, and shall not return.” (Isaiah 45:22b, 23a)

The Greek word translated “everlasting” here is the adjective aiōniŏs. Aaiōniŏs indicates a period of time, the length of which is qualified by what takes place during that time-period. Aaiōniŏs fire lasts long enough to justly punish and thoroughly exterminate the wicked. Then it goes out. Now let’s look at one final thought on this text that my daughter Hope, shared with me as she edited my manuscript:

The word “prepared”does not imply that the fire is already burning now, but simply that when God shall say to those on the left hand, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,” He will have the fire ready for them. Besides that, if the fire is indeed burning right now, there couldn’t be anyone burning there according to this passage. If you read this passage in context, you will see that all this happens “when the Son of Man comes in His glory”, when “all the nations will be gathered before Him,”and when “He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.” (NKJV) Please read Matthew 25:31-46 now. In light of this, how can one prove that souls are being tormented in hell right now with a text that does not say anything about sinners’ souls being thrown one by one when they die into a fire that has been burning since who-knows-when? On the contrary, it points forward in very clear language to the Day of Judgment, and implies that all mankind will be judged and separated, righteous from the unrighteous, at the same time.

Death is an unconscious sleep. From the moment of death to the moment of reawakening at the resurrection, it will seem to each sleeping person that he/she has slept only a split-second. All the dead are now sleeping unconscious of the passing of time till “the day of the Lord.”

“But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word [the word of God], are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men…. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?” ( 2^nd Peter 3:7,10-12 NKJV)

Baptized for the Dead?

We are not baptized on the authority of a dead Christ but for a living Christ! That is the primary message of 1^st Corinthians 15. Please read that chapter in your Bible now. According to verse 12, some of the Corinthian church members were saying “that there is no resurrection of the dead.” Paul makes it clear that “if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen.” (verse 13) Throughout this chapter, Paul repeatedly asserts that if there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ isn’t alive and therefore baptism and faith in Jesus is useless. Hence, he states the obvious absurdity of being baptized for a “dead Savior”: “And if Christ be not risen, then [is] our preaching vain, and your faith [is] also vain.” (Verse 14)

The original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament were written in all caps with no punctuation and no breaks between words and sentences. English translators have supplied all punctuation, word and sentence breaks in your Bible. Here is what an English translation of 1^st Corinthians 15:29 might look like if we were to substitute English letters for Greek and print the text in all caps without punctuation and breaks:

ELSEWHATSHALLTHEYDOWHICHAREBAPTIZEDFORTHEDEADIFTHEDEADRISENOTATALLWHYARETHEYTHENBAPTIZEDFORTHEDEAD

The King James translators punctuated the passage as follows: “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?” Mormons have traditionally used this text to justify their bizarre ceremony of baptizing dead people by proxy. However, that strange practice is not corroborated anywhere else in Scripture. In fact, the teaching of vicarious baptism is completely out of context with all the rest of 1^st Corinthians 15. Please note the following two points:

(1) According to the following texts, salvation requires personal belief and confession. And since dead people don’t know anything, they can’t believe and confess. The whole Mormon death cult is based on the spiritist belief in conscious disembodied souls. Since the Bible denies the existence of conscious disembodied souls, the Mormon religion is proved a worthless sham without any biblical foundation! (Acts 2:38; 8:36-37; Ezekiel 18:20-24; John 3:16; 1^st John 1:9; Ezekiel 14:14, 16; Psalm 49:7)

(2) Death marks the close of human probation. The Bible makes no allowance for a second chance after death. (See Psalm 49:7-9; Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10; Isaiah 38:18-19; Luke 16:26; Hebrews 9:27-28)

The word dead (Greek, nĕkrŏs) occurs three times in 1^st Corinthians 15:29. A realistic interpretation must conform to a reasonable translation of the Greek phrase huper tōn nekrōn (“for the dead”). Most translators seem to agree that huper (“for”) here means “on behalf of.” “On behalf of” does not necessarily mean “in the place of.” It can mean “for-the-sake-of” or “on-the-authority-of.” With that understanding, Paul is essentially asking “Why be baptized for the sake of a dead Christ?” or “Why be baptized on the authority of a dead Christ?” Frankly, how much authority would a dead Christ have? This interpretation makes sense when we notice that the five preceding verses have just dealt with the subject of Christ’s absolute authority over “all things,” the Father only excepted! We could substitute “on the authority of” for the word “for” here, then the passage could read as follows, “Else what shall they do which are baptized on the authority of the dead [Christ]? If the dead [believers]rise not at all, why are they then baptized? On the authority of the dead [Christ]?”

Actually, we can even use the traditional punctuation as it reads in the King James and still interpret the passage in a manner that is fully compatible with the message that we are not baptized for a dead Christ. Here is the King James punctuation understood from a reasonable perspective. “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead [Christ], if the dead [believers] rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead [Christ]?”

Paul sums up our situation in the following words: “And if Christ be not raised, your faith [is] vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” (Verses 17, 18) Here Paul expresses the utter futility of baptism if Christ has no authority to destroy death. In verse 30 Paul asks, “And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?” In other words, why should we constantly risk our lives to preach faith in a dead Christ who has no power to raise us back from the dead? As Paul notes elsewhere in the chapter, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” (Verse 19) And, “What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.” (Verse 32) The resurrection of Christ is central to the gospel. The bottom line here is that it would be a waste of time and effort to be baptized for a dead Christ!

Jesus “Appeared” After His Crucifixion

Fascination with spirit mediums and (supposed) contact with the dead has grown exponentially during the past couple of decades. Hollywood and book publishers are fueling this growing interest. Millions of misled people have become believers in these phenomena. Of course, some of the professed mediums are phony and many of their supposed contacts are charades. On the other hand, some documented events do seem to have involved the supernatural.

Many of the modern psychics claim to revere the Bible, Jesus, and God. Some of them claim to have received visits from the disembodied “spirit” of Jesus. Steve Wohlberg, in his book Demons in Disguise, reports, “Sylvia Browne, one of the 21^st century’s most popular mediums, believes that the ‘spirit’ of Jesus Christ of Nazareth did ‘appear’ many times from the Other Side.”⁸

The “Other Side” is a reference to a so-called spirit world filled with the filmy ghosts of dead people. Spirits do exist, but they are not ghosts of dead people. They are supernatural beings, some good and some evil, with bodies of a different composition than ours and visible only in a different dimension than we currently are able to discern with our limited physical senses and inadequate scientific tools. The Bible refers to these beings as spirits because they have a powerful influence or spirit, and because they are usually invisible to our eyes. There is no such thing as a “spirit world” populated with dead people’s vapor-like ghosts.

As we noted, Sylvia Browne and other necromancers claim that Jesus appeared in spirit form numerous times after His crucifixion and that He still appears in spirit form today. These people are misstating the Scriptures when they try to use the Bible to “prove” that Jesus’ “spirit” visited people after His death. There is not a single passage anywhere in Scripture indicating that any disembodied human spirit ever visited anyone. The spirit medium’s claims are based primarily on 1^st Corinthians 15:3-8. After quoting portions of that passage, Sylvia Browne makes the following comment:

With these and other Biblical accounts of the earthly appearances of a Spirit [Jesus Christ] who had very definitely transcended the Other Side, how and why would someone get the idea that encounters between humankind and the afterlife are evil? I’m certainly not about to give credit to a supposed “devil” for Christ’s visitations to this world after His crucifixion, are you?⁹

Sylvia Browne is not teaching what the Bible teaches! Let’s look now at what 1^st Corinthians 15:3-8 actually says:

“For I[Paul] delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”

This passage plainly states that all of these “appearances” came after Jesus “rose” from the grave. That He made His post crucifixion visits in bodily form is further emphasized in John 20:11-18 and Luke 24:36-43.

Jesus ascended bodily back into heaven where He is currently mediating for His repentant followers and preparing to return at the appointed time. (See Acts 1:9-11; Hebrews 4:14-16) After Jesus ascended bodily into heaven, He did appear a few other times to apostles and prophets in visions and dreams, but never as a disembodied ghost. (See Acts 7:55, 56; 9:1-6; Revelation 1:12-17)

Divinity cannot die, therefore Jesus’ divine nature did not die on the cross — but that is not the issue in dispute here. The question is, Did Jesus’ human nature really die on the cross? He Himself gives us the straight answer in Revelation 1:18: “I [am] he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.” Yes, Jesus the man was dead, very dead, fully dead — but now He is alive, very alive, fully alive!

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